No locker room access for the media. Kyle successfully mongered enough fear into the hearts of North American sports executives that we are now barred from entry.

This seemed inevitable, and Monday night the NHL, NBA, MLS, and MLB issued a joint statement explaining that reporters would be kept out of the locker room while media availability is set up elsewhere in the Wells Fargo Center/Citizens Bank Park/Subaru Park/etc:

I don’t think we need to be in the locker room in the first place, a stance I outlined in a column written Monday called “Grant Wahl Tweets Harmless Opinion, Melodramatic Sports Writers Complain.” The sacred institution of sports writing will survive with quotes that we record in the hallway, or at practice, or in a press conference or scrum setting.

Two new thoughts, however, on this press release:

  1. If it’s unsafe for the media to be near players, then it’s probably unsafe for fans to be packed in next to each other like sardines. And should players be breathing on one another, boxing each other out and throwing in soccer tackles and baseball slides? If you’re going to limit locker room access to reporters, safety measures should probably be extended to the entire venue for the reason they outlined above.
  2. Of course money plays a factor. You don’t take a financial hit when booting media from the locker room, but they’re gonna be screwed if they have to play in empty arenas. From that standpoint, it’s probably better to just postpone the games and play them later in front of full crowds, instead of playing closed-door games and losing a ton of cash.

For what it’s worth, the Sixers practice today at 1:15 p.m. and there are no restrictions for media access, at least none that were outlined in the press release. Maybe they put the players at a podium or bring us into a room where we can sit 6-8 feet away, but it doesn’t seem like too big a deal either way.